Hypnotism: Its History, Practice and Theory |
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as peculiarly encouraging. In other quarters of the globe, especially in America, it had also awakened great interest. Beard had already long ago occupied himself with the question. Unfortunately, his investigations are not known to the extent they deserve. In r88r Beard also attempted, at the International Congress of Physicians in London, to interest European physicians in hypnotism. The results he obtained were the opposite of those he desired, as may be seen from the writings of various eye-witnesses, Mortimer Granville, Donkin, and Crichton Browne, in the British Medical journal, although the first-named, Granville, at the International Medical Congress in London in r88r, had referred to the possibility of hypnotizing the insane. Although Beard's exertions were at first fruitless, at a later period many in America occupied themselves with the problem of hypnosis. Among recent investigators may be named Funkhouser, Hamilton Osgood, William Lee, Howard, Pope, Gerrish, Fitzgerald, Clark Bell, Hulst, Hammond, Dana, Vermeren, Axtell, Booth. Sidis made special investigations into the psychology of suggestion as a means of studying personality, and in this was to an extent under the guidance of William James, of the University of Harvard; he published a monograph on the Psychology of Suggestion, but the work is not based entirely upon observations made upon persons in the hypnotic state. In various universities and colleges of the United States the study of hypnotism has been carried on ; for example, at Wellesley College, as Whiton Calkins reports. A scientific association, the American Society for Psychical Research, now affiliated to the English Society, has also been formed in the United States. In several of the South American States serious inquirers have turned to the study of hypnotic phenomena; for example, Octavio Maira and David Benavente in Chili; Barreto, Fajardo, and Jaguaribe in Brazil. In Cuba HISTORY OF HYPNOTISM. 23 the physicians Villamonga and Diaz may be named. Damoglou, of Cairo, also has studied hypnotic suggestion. As was to be expected, hypnotism very soon began to arouse greater interest in Germany. Although the investigations incited by the exhibitions of Hansen had le''t no lasting impress, yet from time to time individual inquirers, such as Obersteiner of Vienna, Frankel of Dessau, and Mobius, had endeavoured to draw attention to hypnotism in Germany by clear and impartial reports. Experiments in therapeutics had also occasionally been made; for example, by Creutzfeldt, Wiebe, E. L. Fischer, Berkhan. But no general interest was aroused until 1887, when I delivered an address on the question before the Medical Society of Berlin, in which I related my own experiences and certain observations I had made at |
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